Plastic

referred to as the plastic age (Cózar et al 2014). Plastic is synthetic polymers derived from petroleum (Vikas & Dwarakish 2015), it is lightweight, inexpensive to produce and hailed as an industrial achievement (Detloff & Istel 2016). Moreover, plastic does not decompose, the durable material simply breaks into smaller particles, pervading the water and marine life (Detloff & Istel 2016). Our current society has established a constant consume and discard rhythm, fuelling the ‘plastic economy’. Marine

What is Plastic Pollution? Plastics are synthetic materials that are made from synthetic resins or organic polymers. Examples of these polymers include nylon, PVC, and polyethylene. Plastic pollution involves the accumulation of plastic products in the environment that adversely affects wildlife, wildlife habitat, and humans. The prominence of plastic pollution is correlated with plastics being inexpensive and durable, which lends to high levels of plastics used by humans. However, it is slow to

over one trillion plastic bags are used every year worldwide. Plastic is not biodegradable so for each bag it takes one thousand years to degrade or totally break down. Since plastic was first produced in 1907, humans have generated 8.3 billion metric tons plastic products, that is equivalent to 25,000 empire state buildings or 80 billion blue whales. Plastics have outlasted most man-made materials and have been under environmental scrutiny for quite some time. Although plastic was once regarded

16 April 2012 Essay III How Plastic Pollution is Out of Control Many individuals underestimate the amount of plastic we use each day. According to the article “Plastic Bags Wars”, “the world consumes 1 million plastic shopping bags every minute”. Plastic bags, along with many other types of plastics, have become a leading source of pollution worldwide (Doucette). Captain Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita foundation states that we use two million plastic bottles in the United States every

such as our phones, clothes, shoes, plastic bags, and many more. However we could narrow the materials down to metal-based products, polymer-based products/ plastics, and cellulose-based products/paper. To narrow things even down further so that we could have an argument, plastic and cellulose could both be used to make the same type of material such as containers for juice, containers for food, chairs, tables and many more. With this, we could now compare if plastic or paper is the better material

mistreatment of our earth is plastic. Most plastics are made from petroleum or natural gas; non-renewable resources extracted and processed using energy-intensive techniques that destroy fragile ecosystems. The manufacture of plastic, as well as its destruction by incineration, pollutes air, land and water, and exposes workers to toxic chemicals, including carcinogens. It’s not news that plastic is harmful to the environment, but how much damage is it really causing? Plastic is everywhere around us and

Plastics and their Environmental Impact – Issues Investigation 1. Describe what plastics are. Plastics are materials that can be moulded into any shape by applying heat and/or pressure while soft but obtain a hard a rigid structure when hardened. Plastics are mainly carbon based and can be made out of materials such as crude oil, plants, minerals, natural gas and coal. Plastics are made up of large molecules called polymers which are made up of shorter compounds called monomers. To make various

the green unknown plastic is PETE, the clear unknown plastic is also PETE, the blue unknown plastic is PP, the white unknown plastic is PS, and the cloudy white unknown plastic is HDPE. Figuring out the known plastics’ densities benefitted our lab by confirming us the densities of the plastics, PETE, HDPE, PP, and PS. Then, by being given the densities of 30% (5 M) sodium chloride, water, and ethanol, we were able to use these solutions to help differentiate the unknown plastics. Placing all 5 of

Background The overuse of plastics in today's society has become major environmental issue for our oceans. Plastic pollution is the dumping, littering, or disposing of any type of man-made plastic that has been produced and has ended up in our ocean and has not been recycled. History of Plastic "Plastic" entered the world through chemistry in 1909 and was originally coined to describe Bakelite, the first fully synthetic resin. What make's plastic so unique is when it is heated it can be molded

pollution is a kind which has existed for less than a century, yet it now greatly plagues a significant portion of the Earth: plastic pollution in the oceans. Although it may seem that this issue only endangers the health of marine life, plastic pollution is also harmful to all the species higher up in the food chain including humans. If not properly addressed, then plastic pollution will lead to a rise of significant health issues for both ocean life and humans as the issue escalates in the coming